Navy official removed amid waste allegations

San Diego ship repair yard under investigation

The head of the Navy’s ship maintenance center in San Diego was removed Thursday following allegations of wasteful spending.

A Navy spokesman wouldn’t say how much money was allegedly wasted, or how. The now-former commanding officer and several civilian workers are under investigation by the Navy Inspector General.

Capt. Michael Wiegand was relieved of command of the Southwest Regional Maintenance Center, a ship repair facility at San Diego Naval Base that is responsible for intermediate-level maintenance of more than 100 ships and submarines of the U.S. Pacific Fleet.

Navy spokesman Christopher Johnson said the investigation “substantiated allegations of waste as a result of poor project management and lack of proper oversight.”

He said that government funds were “misspent in a number of areas” but declined to offer any more details, saying that the investigation continues.

The civilians involved have been either temporarily or permanently reassigned, he said. The ship repair site has 2,200 military and civilian employees.

This is the second apparent contracting scandal at a San Diego Navy maintenance facility in recent years.

The Navy’s Southwest Fleet Readiness Center – which does maintenance on military aircraft at North Island Naval Air Station – has been rocked by federal indictments.

Last month, a federal judge gave two former civilian Navy employees and three North County defense contractors prison sentences ranging from 18 months to more than three years for their roles in a years-long bribery and fraud scheme there.

The sentences came in a case in which prosecutors said more than $1 million in gifts — including cash, gift cards for Home Depot, Lowe’s and the Apple store, and home-remodeling work — was given to the Navy employees by contractors over six years or more.

That case is still growing, with a fifth Navy worker charged in October.

At the San Diego ship maintenance facility, the official reason given for Wiegand’s relief from command -- what amounts to a firing from a job in the Navy -- was loss of confidence in his ability to command.

Capt. Mike Fulgham, the second in command, has taken over until a replacement is assigned.

Wiegand, who took command in July 2010, will be reassigned to administrative duty. This was his third tour as an officer at the San Diego Naval Base maintenance yard. He received his Navy commission in 1985 after graduating from Michigan State with a degree in agricultural engineering.

He is the second San Diego-based Navy commanding officer to be fired from his post in a week.

On Friday, the skipper of the frigate Vandegrift was relieved of his command for demonstrating poor leadership and failure to ensure the proper conduct of his officers during a drunken September port visit in Vladivostok, Russia.

The Navy has fired 22 commanding officers this year, according to a tally kept by Navy Times.